The Java Virtual Appliance—
No OS Required

Copyright

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March 2008 CWP1516E0207-2B

BEA White Paper – The Java Virtual Appliance—No OS Required

Contents

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Virtualization: understanding the basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

BEA takes virtualization to the next level for Java applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

New levels of business agility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Cost reduction and improved ROI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Greater optimization through bottom-up enablement: BEA LiquidVM

™

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Greater manageability through top-down control: BEA Liquid Operations Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Virtualization: What it means for SOA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

About BEA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Join the BEA community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

BEA White Paper – The Java Virtual Appliance—No OS Required

Overview

With corporate data centers at or near their physical limit, virtualization is fast emerging as the best way to

meet the growing demand for computing capacity. Adding physical capacity isn’t a fast, easy, or readily scala-

ble option. Sometimes it’s hardly an option at all: building new data centers takes too long and costs too

much, and new hardware technologies are outstripping the power and cooling capabilities of existing data cen-

ters. But most servers typically run at less than 10 percent of capacity-which means that currently, there’s $140

billion in excess server capacity installed worldwide. For many companies, the fastest and most cost-effective

way to expand computing capacity is simply to make use of their idle processing capability. This realization is

driving a huge increase in the number of companies turning to virtualization

1

.

Virtualization, a set of technologies that helps IT run more applications on a given set of servers, can dramati-

cally increase utilization of existing capacity-and could enable businesses to leverage their current hardware to

meet their needs for years to come. This boosts business’s return on investment in hardware and data center

facilities. Even more important, virtualization enables IT to make immediate, incremental changes to capacity to

meet dynamic business needs-without incurring new costs-by provisioning or migrating applications in real

time.

Companies of all sizes are enthusiastically adopting virtualization. In March 2007, an IDC study estimated that

in 2006, virtualization had been adopted by 38 percent of medium-sized companies (fewer than 1000 employ-

ees), 67 percent of large companies (1,000-9,999 employees), and 72 percent of very large companies

(10,000+ employees). In a recent Forrester survey, respondents who had already implemented virtualization

estimated that it had saved them more than 23 percent in server space, power, and cooling costs

2

.

Now, companies that want to virtualize their Java application infrastructure can achieve unprecedented levels of

optimization and efficiency, while reducing hardware costs and ongoing operations management expenses.

BEA’s approach is to apply virtualization concepts traditionally used at the server level to the software layers,

pooling the resources of the Java runtime stack and applying automation principles. This results in even greater

efficiency, higher utilization, and greater cost savings.

1

1. IDC, March 2007

2. IDC 2007

BEA White Paper – The Java Virtual Appliance—No OS Required

Virtualization: understanding the basics

Virtualization requires adding a new layer, called a virtualization hypervisor, to the stack. A hypervisor is a pro-

gram that runs on top of the hardware and plays host to one or more virtual machines, each of which can be

home to a “guest operating system.” This enables multiple operating systems (OSs)—whether different OSs or

multiple instances of the same OS-to share a single hardware processor or processor complex. The hypervisor

can make a single server appear as many. Also, to reduce apparent complexity, it can hide the physical charac-

teristics of computing resources from the other systems, applications, or end users who interact with those

resources. Server virtualization conceals the characteristics of underlying hardware (everything below the OS)

and allows each OS instance and the applications running on it to act as if they had dedicated hardware. When

one of the OS instances or respective applications crashes, it does not affect the other OSs or applications on

that hypervisor/server.

However, the hypervisor layer traditionally sits above the hardware’s OS, adding a layer of overhead.

Hypervisors are typically small (400-500 MB) and consist of a collection of device drivers, memory manage-

ment, and the logic to time-share the various stacks above them onto the hardware. In effect, a hypervisor is

a stripped-down OS in its own right. With traditional hypervisors, a function call inside the Java application has

to go through more layers to be executed on an actual CPU. The hypervisor’s swapping in and out of each

application’s state imposes additional overhead.

2

B a s i c S e r v e r
V i r t u a l i z a t i o n

Java App

Java App

Java App

Java App

Java Container

Java Container

Java Container

Java Container

Java VM

Java VM

Java VM

Java VM

OS

OS

OS

OS

OS

Server

Server

Hypervisor

BEA White Paper – The Java Virtual Appliance—No OS Required

BEA takes virtualization to the next level for
Java applications

BEA accelerates the virtualization trend with its radically new approach to virtualizing Java applications. BEA is

uniquely positioned to lead in this area, with its tradition of innovation and excellence in the Java infrastructure

market, Java Virtual Machine (JVM) technology, and its deep understanding of enterprise Java-level manage-

ment. Its vision and products are now transforming the virtualization of Java applications by enabling higher uti-

lization and efficiencies through a streamlined “Java OS,” and by delivering value that goes beyond server con-

solidation to dynamic provisioning.

Unlike any other vendor, BEA approaches Java virtualization with a strategy of both top-down control and bot-

tom-up enablement. BEA Liquid Operations Control

™

software provides top-down control by enabling automated

provisioning and resource management with adaptive control for enterprise Java applications. BEA LiquidVM,

a virtualization-enabled version of BEA JRockit

®

, the world’s fastest JVM, supplies bottom-up enablement by

facilitating higher resource utilization at the JVM layer. It is the only JVM that can run on a next-generation

hypervisor without a standard OS, allowing Java applications to run directly on the virtualization layer. VMware’s

ESX Server, the first of these new hypervisors, doesn’t require an OS under it; instead it runs on the “bare

metal” of the server.

BEA’s approach of removing layers between the application and the “bare metal” of the server offers tremen-

dous benefits to companies that rely on Java applications to run their businesses, because it enables them to

deploy Java applications in a virtualized environment with a greatly reduced memory footprint. This streamlining

of OS functionality frees up key resources such as memory and disk space to enable even higher resource

utilization. Compared to standard virtual machines running the full OS and Java stack, the BEA approach

enables more applications to run on a given set of hardware to accomplish up to twice as much work.

3

N e x t - g e n e r a t i o n v i r t u a l i z a t i o n :
B E A L i q u i d V M

Java App

Java App

Java App

Java App

Java Container

Java Container

Java Container

Java Container

Java VM

OS

Server

Server

Hypervisor

BEA Liquid VM

BEA Liquid VM

BEA Liquid VM

BEA White Paper – The Java Virtual Appliance—No OS Required

New levels of business agility

Java virtualization delivers new levels of business agility-one of the main motivations for businesses considering

a virtualized approach. In a recent study, 92 percent of respondents rated increasing flexibility and speed of

making changes as “important” or “very important” factors in their decision to virtualize. Companies gain sub-

stantial flexibility from decoupling applications and their resource requirements from the runtime infrastructure

on which they are hosted. This enables IT to focus its efforts on defining the desired runtime characteristics.

Then, instead of spending time carefully preparing the infrastructure for the application, IT can count on

automation to deliver the required results.

BEA’s approach to Java virtualization supports business agility with a fully pre-installed and pre-configured

software environment—a virtual middleware appliance. With this appliance, provisioning new instances of the

application stack can take place in near-real time: just minutes or hours as opposed to the days or weeks that

have been the norm. IT can also migrate applications almost immediately, with minimal effort.

4

“It can take me three to six months to get a project off the ground, from conception to procurement, approval,
and installation. In a virtual world, it could take a day.”

Enterprise Strategic Architect at a major financial institution

“There is little doubt that the hottest trend in x86 servers is virtualization—becoming a default by 2009. Gartner
estimates that 40 percent of logical server demand is expected to be virtualized by this time. Extensive conver-
sations with a number of BEA customers have yet to find a customer that is NOT actively considering some
aspect of virtualization for their data center.”

Infrastructure Futures: Virtualized, Agile and Real-Time, Thomas Bittman, Gartner December 2006

BEA White Paper – The Java Virtual Appliance—No OS Required

Delivering on the promise: BEA product roadmap

BEA is the first vendor to deliver top-down, bottom-up enablement of virtualization for Java applications and

SOA services.

BEA LiquidVM, a hypervisor-enabled Java virtual machine, is available in a bundle called BEA WebLogic

Server

®

Virtual Edition, comprising BEA WebLogic Server and BEA LiquidVM. This product builds on the rock-

solid foundation of BEA WebLogic Server to enable Java applications to run more efficiently on virtualized hard-

ware. BEA WebLogic Server Virtual Edition will initially be supported on VMware’s ESX Server and the full

VMware Infrastructure product line with support for other virtualization technologies to follow.

Cost reduction and improved ROI

Companies can leverage virtualization to improve utilization of existing servers for cost reduction and improved

ROI. Also, because BEA’s approach eliminates the requirement for redundant copies of the OS, it results in a

significantly smaller footprint, enabling organizations to run more applications on the same machine-in some

cases, twice as many, according to BEA’s internal tests.

This has follow-on benefits: it reduces the hardware required to support a given number of applications, lowers

OS license and administrative costs, and reduces data center complexity. With BEA’s approach to Java virtual-

ization, IT can migrate to more cost-efficient hardware without recompiling or needing a new version of software.

5

Basic server virtualization
improves utilization to some
extent: the BEA LiquidVM
can double the number of
applications running on a sin-
gle physical server.

App

OS

Server

App

OS

App

OS

App

OS

App

App

App

App

App

App

App

App

App

OS

App

OS

Server

Server

Server

BEA White Paper – The Java Virtual Appliance—No OS Required

BEA Liquid Operations Control is management and control software for managing any Java application in a vir-

tualized or non-virtualized environment. Coming in Q3 2007, this technology will be available as BEA WebLogic

Liquid Operations Control. This product can allow for dynamic resource control of both BEA WebLogic-based

applications and standard Java applications capable of running on BEA LiquidVM.

Greater optimization through bottom-up enablement:
BEA LiquidVM

BEA LiquidVM eliminates each Java application’s OS just as the latest hypervisors like VMware ESX eliminate

the need for the hardware host’s OS. This removes two layers from the stack. LiquidVM—a virtualization-

enabled edition of BEA JRockit, the world’s fastest JVM-is the first and only JVM that can run on hypervisor-

enabled x86 servers without a standard OS, so that Java applications can run directly on the virtualization layer.

This streamlining of OS functionality enables even higher resource utilization. Compared to standard virtual

machines running the full OS and Java stack, up to twice the number of virtual machine containers can run

BEA LiquidVM instances on a single server.

Just as the hypervisor-enabled hardware implements only the OS functionality it needs, BEA LiquidVM imple-

ments certain functions directly and depends on the hypervisor for others. BEA LiquidVM on its own can

replace the majority of the code in a virtual server. Less code means less management and improved stability

and security.

OS Functions in BEA LiquidVM

OS Functions in Hypervisor

OS Functions Not Implemented

• File I/O

• Hardware-specific

• GUI functionality

• Memory Management

device drivers

• Other devices (e.g. printers)

• Thread Management

6

BEA White Paper – The Java Virtual Appliance—No OS Required

Greater manageability through top-down control: BEA
Liquid Operations Control

BEA Liquid Operations Control is software designed to provide significant management benefits for all Java

applications in a non-virtualized or virtualized environment-not just those running on BEA LiquidVM or BEA

WebLogic Server

®

. The BEA Liquid Operations Control console provides visibility into runtime behavior of appli-

cations and a dynamic, integrated information and action framework for managing Java applications and virtu-

alized server resources.

With BEA Liquid Operations Control, IT can provision Java applications on virtualized Java infrastructure. The

applications will not have to have any knowledge of the underlying resources, they will simply “ask” BEA Liquid

Operations Control to provision them according to a standardized set of parameters describing their needs,

such as computing power, memory, and quality of service.

This approach puts control into the BEA Liquid Operations Control resource broker, which supports policy-driv-

en automation of provisioning tasks, relieves applications of the details needed to run, and frees infrastructure

to be dynamically reconfigured and re-optimized. Without this capability, IT would have to take the time to con-

figure each application manually.

7

BEA WebLogic Liquid
Operations Control hides
complexity and enables
dynamic resource provisioning
for Java applications.

BEA Liquid VM

BEA Liquid VM

Liquid Operations

Control

Hypervisor

Controller

Java App

Java App

Java App

Java Container

Java Container

Java Container

Java VM

Hypervisor

OS

Server

Server

Server

Server

BEA White Paper – The Java Virtual Appliance—No OS Required

Virtualization: what it means for SOA

BEA’s approach to Java virtualization fits well with its longstanding leadership in providing IT infrastructures that

empower organizations to achieve “Business LiquidITy

™

”, a state in which IT assets are freed up and made more

flexible in order to deliver maximum value. Virtualization is the latest way in which BEA enables Business LiquidITy.

BEA’s virtualization solutions are a key component of its unique approach to Service-Oriented Architecture,

called BEA

®

Enterprise 360˚. This approach promotes re-use of application service assets to reduce cost of

development and aims to achieve business agility through a flexible, extensible computing paradigm.

Virtualization embodies this computing paradigm, delivering cost efficiencies, improved utilization, and dynamic

scaling.

BEA’s virtualization solutions support BEA’s “liquid” vision by liquefying enterprise IT assets from the bottom of

the software stack all the way up through SOA components and services. SOA 360° spans the three BEA

product families-BEA AquaLogic

®

, BEA WebLogic

®

, and BEA Tuxedo

®

. It encompasses unified tooling through

BEA WorkSpace 360

™

, unified architecture through BEA microService Architecture

™

, and preemptive support

through BEA Guardian

™

.

BEA is uniquely positioned as a leader in the enterprise Java world. With its innovative and high-performance

approach to virtualization, BEA is not just keeping up with virtualization-it’s accelerating it, to the benefit of

every business running Java applications.

About BEA

BEA Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: BEAS) is a world leader in enterprise infrastructure software. BEA

®

Enterprise 360°,

the industry’s most advanced SOA-based offering, is a comprehensive approach to delivering business results

that includes technology, professional services, best practices, and world-class partners. Information about how

BEA helps customers build a Liquid Enterprise

™

that transforms their business can be found at

bea.com.

Join the BEA community

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face different challenges than executives. That’s why we’ve created four unique communities that give you

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8

CWP1516E0207-2B

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